[09/09/2026][POETRY]Been so Blank
Three Poems by Jared Flood
The Balloon Animal
guy in the hospital lobby
shows a crowd of kids,
how he makes the limbs,
while twisting
the head from the body’s
small chamber of air.
In the small hours of the morning,
in the corner of your father’s room,
your mother
is up knitting soft blue sweaters
though she’s never been a soft person.
Contemplating Quitting Anything
been so blank, even the stones
that hit me stopped splashing.
I stop to watch the geese.
The way they walk
like little priests,
like it’s not the dead of winter
on the banks of the white lake. I keep good habits.
I take vitamin D. I take walks.
I keep my worst habit, circling
one path like a lazy toilet flush
through the trees.
Nothing on my mind. It’s good for me.
I’m not sure I believe that.
I’m a patient person.
I’m not sure I believe that.
The lengths I’ll go
to believe things will change.
It’s insane. With patience
I’ll believe anything I want
will fall for me if I stay loyal
to the trees.
I feel trust
like this polluted lens
of light, falling in layers
Scattering smoggy beauty
across the Ohio River valley’s sky.
I remember my life,
watch it like a passenger
in the plane overhead,
My father tells me my problem
is too much time on my hands.
Or was it that my problem was too many hands?
I resist
and give into ideas. From above
the midwest landscape is a perfect quilt
thanks to us.
One night, walking
through an old life
on Google Maps
I find my father and I.
He bends over to pluck weeds.
I crouch
exaggerating the gesture.
JARED FLOOD is one of the people from Kentucky. He is also one of the people living in Portland, Oregon. He writes comedy and poetry for places like Spectra Poets, Asche Bloom Magazine, and McSweeney's.